Responsibility OS
Know what needs you, and why it is yours.
Open Threads connects the systems your work already happens in and keeps one explainable record of what you owe, who is waiting on you, and what it would take to close it.
One
Six systems. One thing that needs you.
Nothing moves into Open Threads. It reads what is already there — the channels, projects and repositories you choose, and nothing else.
- ChatSlackTeams
Requests and commitments nobody filed
- WorkJiraLinear
Assigned work and decisions it waits on
- CodeGitHubGitLab
Reviews standing between a branch and a release
- EmailGmailOutlook
External asks and the dates attached to them
- CalendarGoogleOutlook
What a meeting needs decided beforehand
- DocumentsDriveOneDrive
Comments and approvals left open
One responsibility
Confirm the retry limit before Friday’s freeze
- Owner
- You — asked directly, and you hold the decision
- State
- Needs action · 19h old
- Evidence
- A Slack ask, an issue, a review, and a release date
- Consequence
- 4 engineers idle · release at risk
- Closes when
- The answer is in the thread and the issue moves
Six systems. One object — with an owner, a reason, a cost and a definition of done that none of the six could hold on its own.
Connectors gather the evidence. What is hard, and what this is for, is everything that happens to it afterwards.
Illustrative dataTwo
Scattered signals become things that need you.
A question in a channel, an issue waiting on a decision, a review nobody picked up and a document comment left open are four notifications in four products. They are often one thing.
It catches what nobody filed
“I'll take a look” is a commitment. No ticket, no due date, no assignee — and exactly the kind of thing that surfaces four days later as a slipped release.
It knows who it belongs to
Named request, decision authority, project ownership, a promise you made earlier. Each carries a weight, and you can see and argue with all of them.
It orders by what is stopped
Not by due date, and not by a priority someone set three weeks ago — by who cannot move until you do, and what that puts at risk.
It stays quiet
Below its confidence threshold it asks rather than asserts. A system that surfaces a hundred possible obligations a day is worse than the problem it set out to solve.
Three
Then you just ask.
No board to groom, no status to keep current. You ask, and the answer is the work itself — with what it was drawn from attached, and nothing written until you say so.
What am I blocking?
You're blocking 8 responsibilities, holding up 10 people across 5 projects.
The most urgent is “Clarify authentication retry acceptance criteria” — Alex, Cole and two contractors are idle on AUTH-481 pending this decision.
Show 5 more
Enter to send · nothing is written until you approve
Who is waiting on you
8 responsibilities
and 3 more across 5 projects
The conversation is the interface; the canvas shows whatever it is currently about. Answers resolve into responsibilities you can act on.
Illustrative dataFour
Tracked until it is genuinely closed.
Waiting on someone is a state that ages. Done means the source systems agree. And when something reopens it, it comes back on its own.
Approve revised enterprise pricing proposal
Sarah asked you directly, and pricing changes above 10% need Product Director approval. Both are true, so it is yours.
No Jira issue. No due date. Nobody typed /todo.
Responsibility timeline
Monday 9:16 AM · Slack
“Ryan, can you review the revised pricing proposal before Wednesday? I need your sign-off to take it to Northwind.”
Illustrative data
Six states, one responsibility. Nobody filed a ticket, nobody set a due date, and the last transition is the one no task manager makes.
Illustrative dataThe outcome
What a team actually gets.
Fewer things dropped
The commitments nobody wrote down are visible, owned and ageing in the open rather than in somebody's memory.
Shorter waits
Everyone can see who is blocked on them and for how long, which is usually all it takes.
Fewer status meetings
“Where is that?” has an answer with evidence attached, so nobody reconstructs it from memory in a retro.